Caffeine as a Source of Misattribution in Police—Offender Confrontations: An Experiment with the Fire Arms Training System

Abstract

An experiment examined the iffects ofpolice officers' caffeine consumption on theirperception and shooting behaviour during confrontations with <1fenders. Based upon theories of emotions and attributional processes (Schachter, 1964;Zillmann, 1978Zillmann, , 1983 it was hypothesised that caffeine consumption would lead to an under-estimation of the offender's a&ression, less aggressive feelings towards the offender, and decreased willingness to shoot at the offender. Fifty-two police officers in Holland ingested either 150 mg ofcaffeine or Vitamin C and faced a videotaped Fire Arms Training System simulated scenario. The results supported the hypotheses, and some implications are discussed in this paper.